Authors writing the same thing in different ways (which results in inconsistency and poorer quality)

Slow and unnecessary reviews

Time lost due to unevenness and gaps in the writing project

Slow internal communication

These are also known as the three wastes of non-value-adding work: overwork, overburden and unevenness.

Modular writing

When it comes to writing the document, it requires writing in a modular, component, based way. To anyone used to dealing with databases, it’s a familiar concept. You can take these chunks of text and re-use them in more than one place. You can arrange them in different ways to create a range of documents. For example: create documents tailored to a particular role, publish a paper quick reference document, and publish a version that can be read on a mobile phone. You can make a change in one place and see that change ripple through all the documents that use that piece of information within them.

Often, you’ll find that content is repeated, and you’ll often be able to reduce these to a single topic. You can re-use the content to publish the information as Web pages, Word documents and PDF files. You can also create different versions of the documents for different audiences or focused on a particular subject.